


By Return Mail

by swooning



Series: Gifts [2]
Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-08
Updated: 2015-04-08
Packaged: 2018-03-21 20:19:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3703961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swooning/pseuds/swooning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bill's sent Laura a gift on New Caprica; she sends a little something back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	By Return Mail

The envelope before him was taped shut rather than sealed, its glue long since spent on some forgotten recipient. More than one pair of grubby fingers had left their mark along its edges and flap, and “Admiral William Adama” was far down the front side, last in a long list of names that had been written in, then crossed out. 

But the paper inside, though obviously culled from many different sources, only bore the mark of one hand: Laura’s. Her hand, though not her words, except for the brief note that had been clipped to the front page. 

That top page, the one from which Starbuck seemed to leap, her agile form captured in sure strokes of graphite in the act of making an impossible interception; the pyramid ball seemed to be willing itself into her outstretched hand, and the look of nearly manic triumph in her laughing eyes was almost painfully dear. Another, smaller sketch near the bottom right corners featured only her face, this time in a moment of keen vulnerability – his little girl. 

More pages, more images followed. Here, a blank flyleaf from a book, and Chief Tyrol… no, just Tyrol now, just Galen… stood on a stage, only a few lines of ink needed to convey the passion with which he was clearly addressing the suggestion of a crowd sketched before him. And Cally, on the same page, her belly just beginning to stretch her shirt out, and she looked happy but older than Adama remembered. 

Several former crew members, sitting in a row in the ground along a tent flap, and even the spare style of the hasty drawing rendered them recognizable to him, as if he were seeing a photograph. He laughed when he realized that Kat, sitting on the end of the row, was just passing along a bottle to the next in line. As if not much had changed. 

The next page was a piece of former stationery, heavy and creamy, something Laura had obviously not used lightly. Indeed, the portrait on this page was intensely, lovingly detailed, and Bill stared at it in wonder for the love it so clearly conveyed for the subject. Could he, he wondered, feel the same way in the same circumstances? He remembered his own boys at this age, so terribly small, so overwhelmingly in need of love, and so assured that they would receive it. Was Hera – Isis – any different? Would he be any better able than Laura to resist the charm of the sleeping infant, her face peeking out from the swath of blankets, with one stubborn fist just starting to work its way clear of the swaddling? He flipped the page to the back of the stack suddenly, unwilling to dwell too long on that subject. 

Two watercolor studies, on what looked like real watercolor paper, of what seemed to be local flora. She had actually found flowers in that wasteland, found beauty there, and taken the time to put it to paper. Her handwriting was here, too, actually, a hasty note beneath each drawing recording the time, the place, the conditions under which each sample was found. And after the second one, in a different ink, she had made what seemed to be a later addition: “Toxic.” He automatically wondered, then realized he did not want to know, how that discovery had been made. 

There were more sketches, mostly in pencil or ink, half a dozen or so pages of line drawings that brought his crew back to life in his mind, even as it showed them fading into the civilian life in the tent city. At the next-to-last page he laughed out loud; Lee and Tyrol, after a hunting expedition during Lee’s only shore leave to date, held up a…  _thing_ … by its tail, Lee’s handsome face beaming at the world, while Tyrol looked appalled at their slime-covered catch. He could almost hear Laura laughing with him. 

And then on the last sheet, down in one of the corners, almost like an afterthought to the larger ink sketch of the city’s main thoroughfare, was a self-portrait. Nearly a caricature, but the lines of the tousled hair, the glasses slipping down the nose, the smile that touched the eyes more than the mouth – she had put the essence of herself there on the page, and his first impulse was to cut it away from the rest and carry it around in his pocket so he could look at her all day long.

He didn’t, because if anybody had found him out, he wouldn’t have known how to explain it. So it went into a drawer with the rest of the sketches, clipped together with the last page first, and her note on top. Her note, which meant more to him than she probably intended it to mean. Or perhaps not. He could always hope. He clipped it so it blocked most of that page, but left him a clear view of Laura’s face. Her words, next to her face, where he could see them every time he opened his top, right-hand desk drawer…

_Dear Bill, you gave me back something I didn’t even realize I was missing. “Thank you” doesn’t seem quite enough… perhaps these will remind you of some things you may be missing. Love, Laura_   


 

 

 


End file.
